Four civilians – a woman and three children – had been killed in an American strike which was targeting dozens of Islamic State fighters in Baghouz. The survey was launched after revelations published by the “New York Times” in 2021.
Le Monde with AFP
The Pentagon announced, Tuesday, May 17, that officials of an air strike who made civilian victims in 2019 in Syria had not committed any fault, not having “deliberately” killed civilians, or acts of “unjustified indifference”.
The internal investigation of the Pentagon on this bombing of March 18, 2019 in Baghouz, Syria, had been launched in November after the publication of a New York Times article which accused the American army of having sought to conceal the presence of non-combatant victims. The American daily said that 70 people, including women and children, had been killed in this operation in Baghouz, the last bastion of the Islamic State (IS) group, and that a military lawyer had called the “possible crime war “.
But the investigation, led by the army general Michael Garrett, concluded that the commander of the American forces on the ground had received that day an urgent demand for air support from the Syrian Democratic Forces (FDS ), the coalition of anti-EI fighters supported by Westerners in northeast Syrian. The commander “obtained confirmation that there were no civilians in the shooting zone” and authorized the strike, specifies General Garrett in his conclusions made public by the United States Ministry of Defense.
“No malicious intention”
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said the strike had killed 56 people, including 52 fighters including 51 adults and a teenager. Four civilians – a woman and three children – were killed. In addition, two fighters were injured, as well as 15 civilians (11 women and four children), he said.
m. Kirby informed that no one would be sanctioned for the victims of Baghouz. The investigation established that no one had “acted in violation of the laws of war,” he said, and on the contrary concluded that there had been “no malicious intention”.
“We are not doing everything perfectly, but we are trying to improve,” said the spokesperson. “We try to be as transparent as possible on the lessons we learn.”
The investigation report attributes to “administrative errors” the delays taken in the discovery of these facts, which were only revealed three years later by the press, giving the impression that the army was looking for to hide them. But in a note to the highest hierarchy of the American army, also published on Tuesday, the Minister of Defense Lloyd Austin declared himself “disappointed” to learn that information has been overlooked for months. He ordered the heads of American military commands to ensure that any operation linked to civilian victims is the subject of an investigation.